ABSTRACT
Defining ‘terrorism’ has been an issue that has confounded both policymakers and academics. For some, there is little point in expending any further time on what they see as a forlorn exercise, yet for others the lack of progress on an agreed definition leaves a sense of unfulfilled obligation. From a policymaking perspective, the logic is that if one is to generate international cooperation against terrorism, then there surely needs to be international agreement as to what it is that one is countering. From an academic perspective, one might think that an understanding as to ‘what terrorism is’ and what its parameters are is fundamental to all terrorism-related research. Yet, ‘terrorism’, like all social science concepts, is a social construction, and so it is inherently incapable of a concrete definition that ‘speaks truth’ (e.g. Jackson, 2007). This does not mean, however, that it is not possible to generate a universally agreed conceptualisation of the phenomenon at a given time in a contemporary context. Notwithstanding the difficulties in achieving this, it is probably fair to suggest that most scholars of ‘terrorism studies’ do see themselves as studying a distinctive form of political violence that merits separate scrutiny, hence the burgeoning field of ‘terrorism studies’. So while a concrete definition that speaks ‘the truth’ is beyond us, what is it that is analytically distinctive about the phenomenon that all can potentially agree upon and that can be captured in a general conceptualisation of terrorism?
